Mercati di Palermo

Vucciria, Capo, Ballaro’and Borgo Vecchio are the four markets of Palermo. typical places to visit, places to be included surely in the tourist itineraries because ‘corners of the past.

Near the central station there ‘Ballaro’. If you want to quickly get into the spirit of Sicily or if you have any last before leaving souvenirs to buy, Ballaro ‘, such as location, and’ ideal.

The Vucciria and the Capo however, are easily accessible markets as located near monuments that you can not but admire in Palermo.
The Vucciria, in fact, and ‘Via Roma and Corso Vittorio Emanuele, at the Quattro Canti and that means’ a stone’s throw from the Cathedral and beautiful greek orthodox church: La Martorana.

The Chief, however, and ‘behind the Teatro Massimo and then in the city center.

Old town is located in Corso Scina ‘, between Piazza Sturzo and Ucciardone Square, near the Port and and’ open all night so that, for lovers of discos, and ‘became a meeting place.

All four markets of Palermo have a peculiar characteristic: have remained unchanged over time, appear to the twentieth century visitor’s eyes with the same atmosphere, the same smells, the same colors that offered the Arab merchant of the tenth century.

Between the horns, traffic jams, streets full of shops, department stores, these places seem to be anachronistic and pose immediate contrast between the new and the old, between the past and the present that lives in the heart of a metropolis which ‘ Palermo.

The first feeling you get, leaving behind the big streets full of cars and entering these markets, and ‘to be living a moment of the past.

In the markets of Palermo there are no neon signs but huge lamps, but there cellophane cardboard, the prices are not attached to the goods, but indicated on pieces of wood.
The lanes that are opened between the stalls and ‘narrow and and’ often made impassable by the crowd.

The peculiarity ‘of these markets and’ that of surviving the bombing of progress. In fact in a super market are doors that open by themselves, steel trolleys, neon lights that enhance the colors, sealed products, and priced, while in the markets of Palermo is accessed from the roads, there are no carts and merchandise and ‘free to breathe in straw baskets or wooden boxes, to be seen in daylight and release its fragrance scent.

The sun kissing Sicily twelve months a year and the mild climate of Palermo gave the fiery red with peppers and tomato, the intense lemon yellow, green courgette and blue silver fish. And all these colors, together with numerous other, are present in these streets.

The Palermo markets the music creating the sellers, loudly, in an incomprehensible dialect to the stranger, invite to buy the product or sing songs and, occasionally, throw comments from a stall to another.

You will be involved even you, invite you to taste the fruit, will welcome you with a smile and will make you share the good humor that, every day, hovers in these places.

For the mere fact that you are a tourist, they will compete to become hospitable, will call and make you question, no, not to know your facts, but simply to start a conversation and even if they do not know your language you will also understand with the universal language of gestures and the smile of their faithful companion.

If you stop to talk to any of them here immediately check the dealer’s salesman next door that, joking with a colleague, we will invite ‘not to believe him, and will start’ his conversation and so ‘on, from “virdumaro” to “carnezziere” , from “‘alivaro” to “vruccularo”, will be surrounded by sympathy and cordiality’.

The scents of food and spices that come from the stalls come together in an extraordinary aroma that only here and ‘can hear: fried fritters along with stigliole, freshly baked bread with biscuits and sfingioni, the acrid scent of lemons with oil fragrance.

Even the flavors of Palermo markets they used to be, approach the bench and enjoy the sandwiches of fried aubergines, croquettes and fritters or the sfincioni that are often brought on a cart pushed by hand decorated by the seller, you can sample desserts in which preparing the people of Palermo “licchi” are real specialists: cassata, nougat, almond pastries, ice creams, granitas, impossible to resist!

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Our B&B in Palermo

Located in the noble Via Cavour, on the 2nd floor of the twentieth century Palazzo Miceli, this B & B "Cavour il Conte Camillo" is located in the heart of Palermo a few steps from the famous Teatro Massimo and not far from the Teatro Politeama.